When the Dominic Flandry series came to be incorporated into a future history series, three earlier stages of the Merseians' history were added, as represented by (i), (iii) and (iv) in the preceding post.
(Similarly, a Star Trek film added an earlier stage of human-Vulcan contact.)
Poul Anderson also continued the Flandry series with full length novels and gave more thought to the Merseians' motivations. Their goal is not an impossible single galactic dictatorship but a number of autonomus Merseian-ruled realms. The race, not the regime, matters. But this is true only of those who serve the Roidhunate regime. Beings that are biologically Merseian but resident on the human colony planet, Dennitza, are loyal to the Emperor, not to the Roidhun.
To answer the question, "Why did the Roidhunate not take over after the Empire fell?" we must read between the lines. Merseian morale was eroded by:
several defeats inflicted by Dominic Flandry, including the loss of their Chereionite intelligence service;
the failure of the Magnusson Rebellion, a very long term plan that had been engineered by Aycharaych.
Without Flandry's intervention, the Saxo nova would have destroyed the Terran fleet, leaving Earth defenseless. Merseian hopes were raised, then dashed, several times. This must have blunted their motivation.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
A real example from actual history suggests an answer to the question of why we see no mention of the Roidhunate taking over after the Empire fell. In AD 602 a cruel and incompetent usurper, Phocas, murdered the Eastern Roman Emperor Maurice and his five sons. Phocas rapidly showed himself unable to handle the crises facing the Empire in both west and east. As chaos worsened, the Persian King, Chosroes II, thought he saw an opportunity to overrun the Empire, invading and seizing nearly all of the Imperial provinces. In 610 a revolt by the governor of Roman North Africa brought a far more able man to the throne, Heraclius (r. 610-641). After a long and difficult war, this Emperor drove out the Persians and even invaded Persia to force the Sassanian court to admit defeat by about 628.
I can imagine a frustrated Merseia, perhaps a century after Flandry, fed up with the Terran Empire's stubborn refusal to die, discarding all sense of caution and prudence and waging an all out attack on the Empire (perhaps when crippled by an internal crisis). And, then all of a sudden the Terrans pulled themselves together and united under a great Emperor who defeated and broke Merseia.
And did perhaps a future analog of Islam, arise to destroy what was left of Merseia and nearly topple the Empire? After all, that was what happened in our history! After all, Aycharaych tried to trigger an analogous jihad in THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN (carefully building in contradictions in Cosmenosism to make it self destruct).
Sean
Sean,
Good one.
Paul.
I believe your comparison with the Roman-Persian conflict is very relevant. I find it rather obvious that Poul Anderson modeled his Terran-Merseian rivalry on the Roman-Persian one. For starters, the very name is similiar-sounding: Persia/Merseia.
Also, the geopolitics are similar: Rome was surrounded by barbarians on all side except in the East, where they faced Persia. Terra has Merseia on "it's Betelgeusan flank" and "barbarians everywhere else". Well, excepting the Ythri Domain, of course.
Finally, there are many similitudes in actual events. The characters of old Emperor Georgios, the dispicable Emperor Josip, the capable military usurper Hans Molitor and his sons are a close analogue both to Claudius/Nero/Vespasian and sons, and to Marcus Aurelius/Commodus/Septimus Severus and sons.
It stands to reason that what finally does both Empires in is a final cataclysmic but undecisive conflict, weakening both Empires fatally. If the Rome/Persia analogue stands, then Merseia would have succumbed first at the hands of barbarians who would not have been picky about ravaging either weakened Empire. Terra might have proven capable of preserving some core of the Empire and lingered on for some time, even for a long timeas Byzantium did, but the wound recieved proved ultimately fatal.
Sean,
There is actually a foreshadowing of the in extremis pulling themselves together of the Terrans you propose: In Ensign Flandry, when one Mersian tells another that the Terrans were "great once" and carry "the chromosomes of conquerors", and that if "they see their doom before them, they'll fight like demons". This might be exactly what finally happened!
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